


the calm before

by bokutoma



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles Route, Future, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, the siege of arianrhod
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:47:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25520827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bokutoma/pseuds/bokutoma
Summary: "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;Or close the wall up with our English dead.In peace there's nothing so becomes a manAs modest stillness and humility:But when the blast of war blows in our ears,Then imitate the action of the tiger;Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage"
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Rodrigue Achille Fraldarius
Comments: 16
Kudos: 23





	the calm before

**Author's Note:**

> my second piece for the excellent fe3h.fm zine!!! i had so much fun working on it, and i'd be super happy if you'd check it out!
> 
> [download for free here](https://fe3hfm.bandcamp.com/album/in-times-flow)

Felix Hugo Fraldarius knows he will die here in Arianrhod as surely as he has known anything else in his all too brief life. King, country, chivalry, and glory… all pale before the certainty of this fight to defend the Silver Maiden.

He knows what he’s been brought here to achieve, and it’s not victory. No, what makes him the best choice to die here at the border is exactly the quality he cultivated to avoid the doomed fate of his brother, one he will soon share.

Strength.

With the lightning quick precision only the truly dedicated can achieve, Crest or no Crest, and his single minded ferocity, Felix is meant to carve a bloody hole in the offensive power of the Adrestian Empire. He is less a person than a battering ram; is this what he wanted? Perhaps six years ago, his answer would have been yes.

Regardless of what  _ he  _ wants, though, he will die here, and it will not have been worth it in the slightest. Still, what else is there for the Fraldarius line, beholden to the Blaiddyds as they are? A pointless end awaits all in service to the royal family. No matter how he’s tried to escape it, there has always been a ball and chain at his ankle, and for all his training, he is not strong enough to remove it.

After all, what would have awaited him on the other side? Had he run, he would have loathed himself; Felix doesn’t think he could have even if he’d tried. Would he have joined Edelgard’s crusade? Hardly. For all that it embodies everything he hates most, Faerghus is home. He could no sooner have raised his blade against Ingrid or Sylvain than he could put it down. Goddess knows Professor Byleth had tried, though. Whether that had been out of an earnest desire to see him grow or a guilty conscience, it didn’t matter. Even now, he would never turn back.

For all his bluster and hatred for what his oldest friend has become, turning against the boar-king would be tantamount to turning against himself.

Outside, the sky is cold and gray; the beating of enemy war drums is nearly audible if he concentrates hard enough.

He wishes he could say that it’s evil that runs rampant on the fields outside this fortress city, that Edelgard and her kin could be painted with so well-defined and broad a brushstroke. Maybe then it would be within his grasp to become one of those heroes of legend so beloved by his friends, now walking corpses. Maybe then it would be easier to murder his former classmates.

Goddess, if Dimitri’s tales about the restless dead hold any truth in them, their ranks will soon swell tenfold.

So here will lie Felix Hugo Fraldarius, son of Rodrigue, descendant of one of the Ten Elites. Years of unbroken lineage will halt with his death even if his uncle in the east can hold Fraldarius territory, yet even now, the only thing he can bring himself to mourn are the lives of those still breathing on borrowed time. After all, a hallowed name means nothing without those who have helped keep it afloat.

To die side by side with the father that shaped him will be a final insult and a final blessing both.

Maybe the world really will be a better place without him in it. It wouldn’t be all that surprising, not with his vicious tongue and savagery holding him back from anything resembling a model citizen. He has wounded more people than he can count. With more fervency than he thought he’d possessed, though, Felix desperately hopes it’s true that Edelgard will usher in an era where a person can craft their own destiny based solely on merit. It’s a world he might have liked to live in, had it not been her serving as its harbinger.

After all, he will die here in service to king and country, exactly the knight he never wished to be.

Every promise that Rodrigue Achille has ever made will be broken. Duke Fraldarius, the Shield of Faerghus, renowned for his military might and chivalrous deeds, and he is a man who cannot keep even the simplest of vows. Pathetic.

Lambert, his dearest friend, whose voice haunts the young king mercilessly, would be disappointed in Rodrigue for the situation he has placed that same beloved son in. Rodrigue, who swore to keep Dimitri safe above all else--above  _ Felix _ \--will fall without assurance of having done so. He will die today, and all he can do to save the rightful king is fight with every bone in his miserable body and slay as many soldiers in the unstoppable tide of crimson as he can before his own inglorious death.

Glenn, his firstborn…When Rodrigue sees him in the afterlife, will his son be disappointed in him? He who saved the life that Rodrigue even now dooms with his lack of foresight?

Dimitri, his king and his son in all but name, awaits him in Fhirdiad, tormented and alone. The boy he swore to defend until his dying breath cannot be saved from his own guilt. Will it be this or the Empire’s blade that sees him dead? Faerghus is all but lost already, and with it, Rodrigue’s chances of atonement for the sins of a father who would send his sons to war.

Felix… Felix, who is his son but loathes the idea with a ferocity that breaks his heart, who cares little for the Fraldarius name but fights hard anyway. What chivalry can there be for someone who loathes it? Rodrigue’s lips shape the words of a desperate prayer for more time, more understanding. With every muscle straining against this battle’s inevitable end, he prays for history to remember his youngest well.

Among this most obvious tally of his failings, what can Rodrigue Achille Fraldarius have been said to do right? In these final moments before the fall, who does he choose to die for: his son or his king?

In the end, he is every inch the righteous knight he was born and bred to be.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on twitter @kingblaiddyd


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